The present invention relates to a glove donning and removing machine, and more particularly to a glove donning and removing machine for enabling a person to don or remove a pair of gloves simultaneously, easily and without assistance from another person.
The fear of spreading disease and the AIDS epidemic in particular have created a crisis atmosphere and a heightened awareness of the necessity to wear puncture free, perfect gloves during any medical procedure. The importance of donning gloves and exchanging gloves on the slightest suspicion that they may have been damaged in use cannot be overemphasized. It is life threatening to ignore the risk of transferring body fluids, such as blood or the like, from one person to another.
Unfortunately, gloves which interfere minimally with finger sensitivity, for example, gloves fabricated of rubber, latex or similar materials, are the only ones which are practical for medical applications. But because such gloves must be tightly fitted to obtain good finger sensitivity, the gloves are prone to tearing both while they are being donned or during use. It is therefore imperative, in order to overcome the natural human tendency to become careless, that glove donning and removing be made exceedingly simple, easy and rapid.
Methods and machines for applying or removing gloves have been described in the art, including in several United States patents. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,996,377 describes a glove donning machine with a glove inflating chamber. The glove is mounted such that it hangs into the chamber with the cuff portion of the glove stretched wide and fitted on a rim at the opening into the glove inflating chamber. Thereafter a negative pressure is created within the chamber, causing the glove to expand larger than the size of a human hand by atmospheric air rushing into the glove.
In the U.S. Pat. No. 1,996,377, a suction pump is used for creating the negative pressure and a movable collar at the rim of the inflating chamber helps to dislodge the cuff of the glove from the rim after a person has inserted his/her hand into the glove. When the negative pressure in the chamber is released, the glove shrinks and encases the hand of the person.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,695,493 describes a similar glove donning machine which permits donning of gloves without touching of the exterior surfaces of the gloves by bare hands. A negative pressure is created in a glove inflating chamber by a bellows assembly 30.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,002,276 discloses a glove donning chamber formed by a pair of telescoping cylinders. Relative retraction of the cylinders away from one another creates a negative pressure which inflates the glove, as in the above patents. Subsequent inward pushing of the retracted cylinders is designed to create a positive pressure which is alleged to be sufficient for exploding the cuff of the glove off the rim of the cylinder and onto a person's wrist.
In all known devices, the axial orientation of the glove inflating chambers is not adjustable. In several machines the chamber axis is upright, requiring vertical and, therefore, cumbersome moving of one's hand during glove donning. While other machines provide more comfortable tilted chambers, machines providing individually adjustable chamber orientation are not known in the art.
Also, once a glove is mounted to the rim of any of the prior art glove donning machines, the position of the glove on the rim is fixed. It is impossible to rotate either the glove or the chamber to orient the thumb and fingers of the glove to the most convenient position, except by removing and remounting of the glove. This is bothersome, particularly if machines are to include dual cylinders for simultaneous donning of a pair of gloves.
Another disadvantage of the known glove donning machines arises from their use of only externally located switches or a foot pedal for controlling glove inflating and glove deflating. Foot pedals are cumbersome and difficult to use, particularly when they have several sections for controlling more than one machine function. In the case of hand actuated switches, simultaneous donning of a pair of gloves is impossible because one hand must remain free for actuating the switches. When the gloves are donned serially, the first gloved hand necessarily must contact the switches during donning of the second glove, which is undesirable.